A new form of government

After my last post I thought I'd post this.
A while ago I came up with an idea for the full devolution of democracy, using online voting to the n'th degree. Based as much as possible on various voting/communal online systems. I'm not saying it's without flaws, but I present it here for comment and improvement.

The basic idea goes that everyone has the vote on every single subject.
But i hear you cry, this would be crazy, for a start there'd be too many decisions every person to make.
Correct. That's why you can appoint proxies.
For example if the subject to be voted upon concerned agricultural policy, and your mate Hugh nicely summed up your views on the subject, or at least summed them up enough that you trusted his views then you'd let him vote on your behalf for all fishing related things.
Let's say you met this guy Jeremy down the pub and you liked his ideas on the transport system, you could delegate your transport related votes to him.

So a bill gets proposed in true online democratic fashion (how this happens I'll get back to) and people tag it with tags in order to categorise it according to the various categories. Agriculture, Transport, Education, etc. Obviously most things would have several tags and therefore there would be conflict. This would therefore need you to have an arbiter in case of conflict. Depending on how important the subject was (determined by the amount of acticity on that topic) you would then either delegate it again (perhaps to the equivalent of your MP) or make the resolution yourself.
Ah, but how would the bill get proposed. Simple people could vote bills up or down. If your delegate chose to vote a bill up or down that was within his delegation remit then he would vote it up with the force of all the votes he had control over.

Now there are a number of issues with this system, not least the common problem of people voting for more public spending and lower taxes. There'd be so many on the dole voting for more taxes on the rich that the economy would probably collapse. Given every bill would have an economic impact and assessing the impact of this would be none trivial then how do you even assess the cost of each proposal never mind balance the budget.
My idea, (although it too is flawed) the personal tax allocation. You buy into government services. For example you can vote up or vote down the spending on military, but the cost is shared equally between all taxpayers. You can vote for more or less money spent on roads or whatever but you must pay your appropriate share. Two problems with this, how do you decide what is fair and how do you prevent the race for the bottom.
Simple, when it comes to tax we formalise the agreement that already exists through lobbyists and bribes, he who pays the piper calls the tune - sort of: on a logarithmic scale the more tax you pay the more say you have in financial matters. That is when it comes to tax policy it costs you (at least) four times as much to buy twice the votes. If you as a rich man vote for yourself to pay less tax, you then have fewer votes with which to maintain your position.

As I say it's far from perfect, but it's certainly different from our current scheme.

Precognescence In sportsmen

This is an old thought of mine that I thought I'd share; it's a thought experiment so:

Suppose precognescence is real.
Suppose this talent is particularly useful in sports such as motorracing where knowing ahead of time for example exactly how much grip you have available would be an advantage. Similarly knowing that someone is going to try and overtake you by dodging to the left before they do it would be a huge advantage.
Now suppose that because the offspring of sportsmen/women are likely to interbreed and produce offspring likely to go into that sport themselves then you have set up perfect evolutionary conditions for enhancing this effect.

To summarise - if the ability to see into the future is possible, and this is a genetically carried feature, expect to see it in sportsmen.

Now the existence of this sort of this goes against what you would term my belief system (i.e. all currently observed scientific data) however that's never a reason to fully discount something so: how could we test for it?

Easy - change the penalty for jumping the start of a race. At the moment (taking F1 as an example) there is a random delay from all lights going on, to the lights going off and the race starting. If you are judged to have moved before all lights go off you are judged to have jumped the start. Change this so that no penalty is given if you are sufficiently close to the lights going out. If you have no precognescence, then jumping the start will then most of the time give you a penalty, however if you can truly anticipate when it is going to happen then it'll soon become clear which these drivers are.

I know what results I'd expect to see (i.e. that nothing really changes) but the universe could yet surprise us.

Wormhole Ponderings

For a bit of Sci-Fi I was writing i was developing a set of pretend physics that would allow the story to happen. As I carried on developing this idea I realised it was quite self consistent, and so even though I don't publish my stories, I thought I would publish my ideas behind this for criticism. Yes I have stolen a few ideas from bad pop-science, but at least this might explain a bit more than others bother to.

Consider that the fabric of the universe, the ether if you will, is actually a mass of subatomic size wormholes. Everywhere there is a sea of wormholes their entrances and exits right next to each other, but still a finite distance apart.
A photon would enter the wormhole and a finite time later emerge a finite distance away.
Other particles (such as a proton) interact with the event horizon of the wormhole and thus require an amount of time proportional to the energy of the particle to enter/exit the wormhole. The more energy the particle has the faster it is able to overcome the wormhole's event horizon and thus the sooner it exits. However because energy has to be transferred to the wormhole's entrance event horizon and then returned at the exit, a particle that interacts with the event horizon can only reach the speed of a photon by posessing an infinite ammount of energy.
So far so good, this would give a "reason" behind Relativity's requirement for an infinite amount of energy for light speed.

Then it occured to me that this could explain gravity, because suppose a particle is in the process of passing into the wormhole and another one comes along; having 2 particles interacting with the same event horizon would mean that the particles find it easier to enter and exit the wormhole because they are both overcomming the field together. The effect of this would be that distances seem closer together because they can move throught the wormholes easier, it would be the effect of compressing distances in space that the space-time distortion of Relativity is based upon.

So that's all very nice, but what predictions can you make from this? What tests can you do to support or disprove this?
That's my problem, none that I'm aware of...
Damn useful for a Sci-Fi story though where I need some way to allow wormholes to exist and eventually allow FTL (remembering that FTL means that we have to have time travel)...

Bailing out Manufacturing

So this Times article got me thinking.
Bailing out manufacturing vs bailing out the high street.
Call this simplistic, but a person employed in woolworths serves the UK itself, however from a simplistic analysis they do nothing for anyone else in the world. If you use the old cliche of UK PLC, then they don't produce anything that someone outside the UK wants, in fact they consume vast quantities of goods manufactured abroad.

At least car manufacturers produce something that is exported.

This may be 1st year economics, but to the country as an export (i.e. to pay for imports) what use is any of the high street? The high street may make the country itself more efficient, but it doesn't actually contribute to the bottom line, whereas the car industry does.
Ah, you say: that business has been making a loss for years. Well once you take away subsidies farming makes a massive loss and yet there are plenty of arguments for having a local farming industry.

Transport Let me Down

I had an idea for a new blog:
Open to as many people as possible to post(some limitations to prevent abuse). You then give your tale of how a particular form of transport has let you down.

Could be good for collecting tales about transport woes, particularly some sort of relative measure of how much different forms of transport cause woes. It could also be absolutely dreadful.

You never know until you try, next time I get 10 minutes...

So you're a child being taunted in the playground...

I was thinking about children who get in trouble in the playground for physically attacking someone who has been teasing them, calling them names, etc.
Then I thought about the pen being mightier than the sword, the idea that ideas are more powerful than actions. Of course when the pen is mightier than the sword it is only when the pen is a proxy for greater physical violence; but the point stands.

Of course no-one ever died from being called a name, but to be telling the child at one point that ideas and intentions are vitally important, and then in the second instant that name calling should be ignored sounds a little vacuous.
Also, what do you want the child to do? In the limit, how much verbal abuse should a person take before they do something else about it.
In the real world (such as the workplace) you'd have someone in court or fired for verbal abuse. Any physical action would cause police investigation with either a charge of GBH or ABH. So why then as a child was I repeatedly punched and kicked in school and nothing was done about it by the police? Why are so many children being told that they should ignore name calling, while adults are taking each other to court and getting serious compensation for racial and sexual slurs.

A few reasons I guess:

• Children aren't yet fully aware of the consequences of their actions.
  

Yes for a three year old I buy this argument. I don't buy this argument for a twelve year old. But where do you draw the line? The answer to me is simple, you have a rapidly increasing punishment and responsibility requirement.

• It happens far too often to bother the police/courts with.
  

Again this is an excuse, not a reason.

• It's part of growing up to experiment with this method of solving problems.
• Adults can't be bnothered to get into the depth of details for children
• Children are often a mirror for their environment, and in their predudices we see our own and we don't want to face this.
  
• A reluctance to treat children as young adults.

My old thought experiment is were I now with my mind, put back in the situations I was in as a child (particularly with bullying) what would I do? the only answer I can come up with is to form the playground equivalent of the UN. Not form our own gang as such, but at least try and convince others to form a united front to be protected as a group.

A Change To Clarkson

Bear with me and assume for the moment that Jeremy Clarkson is is hit on the head by a heavy object and suddenly loves Motorbikes and Caravans.

What would change?

Trailer racing
Best tow car - POWER!!!!!
Motorbike vs Car challenges - Hammond and May would love this

Comming not so soon to a shop near you.

This may start off sounding like I'm blowing my own trumpet, but years ago I predicted the many bladed razor. They'd just released the dual blade Mach 2 and I joked that it was only a matter of time before they did a 3 bladed one (if you're in the game of one upmanship). Then years later when they did this I joked that the only thing left was the electrification of them. An electric disposable razor would be the thing. I thought they'd have it oscillating, but I believed it would be quite a significant stroke action to do much of the work of shaving for you, as it turned out it was a pezzy vibrate, but the idea was there.
Whether you believe any of this or not is immaterial I just mention it in passing...

So I was doing my ironing this morning and I had another idea. For decades if not the greater part of a century we've had a better solution that the thermostat clicking on and off. Well if by better you mean more precise/expensive.
Now I don't claim this idea makes good sense in the real practical world, but I do believe that if a 4 bladed razor can be marketed and dominate the market, then so can this.

What you do is simple, take some sort of thermocouple or similar temperature sensing device, infra red sensor would do, as would termistor or anything really that will sense temperature electronically. Then you hook that up to a standard dimmer unit, thyristor or triac based. If you're feeling fancy stick in a PID.
The result? You have an iron that much more exactly follows the correct temperature and can react as you change the thermal load on it.
Will that iron clothes better? Probably not, but I'm not really convinced the none stick base in my iron does much either; that doesn't matter it could be a new gimmick.

So in 2/10 years time when this comes out I'll be looking all smug again.

Dr Who Thoughts

Since I was late publishing this week, I give you 2 posts:

For this tale cast you mind back to the Jon Pertwee era Doctor Who. This could be an apocryphal tale, I don't know, but it amused me so I'll share it. They needed a costume for the new Doctor, and part of this outfit was to be a scarf. Unsurprisingly this department of the BBC had a tame little old lady who whenever they needed something special knitting they went to her. On this occasion a junior runner was sent to get some wool, and take it to the old lady for her to make a scarf with. He then went out and bought a selection of wool and took it to this lady and basically passed on the message "This is the wool to make the scarf with". A week later he went back to find she had used all the wool to make it. Without time to make a new one they went with it and the arguably the most memorable part of the most popular Doctor was born.

Let's assume this tale is true. Let's assume that they somehow had to work in this slightly batty bit of costume to the episode/character. We see evidence of this, right at the start of Robot we have the Doctor trying a range of wacky costumes including a Genghis Khan type affair, finally he comes out in the outfit we know and love and the Brigadier settles on this as good enough. Would this scene have existed if not for the miscommunication?
Without this battyness, would the Tom Baker Doctor have been as batty? Probably (this being Tom Baker) but possibly not. If not then without Tom Baker being batty would later Doctors have been? What we now have as the staple of Doctor Who could so easily not have been.

Just a thought anyway...

Little Shop of Horrors Thoughts

I've recently been involved in a production of Little Shop of Horrors. This is one of my favourite musicals and thought I should state a few things about it that have been going through my brain.

My first encounter with this musical was through my brother at a very young age, at the same time as he introduced me to the Rocky Horror Show soundtrack he introduced me to LSOH. I remember at the time being very taken with the fact that it had a song in it that used the word shit. I'd never heard swearing in music before and this was a very big and cool thing as far as I was concerned.
Over the years I then got to see the film itself and then finally a few productions of it.

Imagine now this is an analysis of the show for some sort of English essay...

The plant is telepathic and can perform telesuggestion:
There is ample evidence in the script that the plant has the ability to influence the events around it with telepathic means. notice how the first woman who buys $100 worth of roses arrives perfectly as needed and responds perfectly to get the maximum possible effect. The plant clearly can influence people's thinking.

Now one theory I've had for a while is that the reason the plant needs blood is that it gains language skills and access to the human condition from its consumption of blood. Some could argue that it could get it's language skills simply by listening in and learning as a child would. I don't buy this as it learns language far faster than a human child would; and without ever making any mistakes. But learning from blood makes no sense, there is know information in blood about language, so the only explanation for the plant's language skills is again telepathy. From this we can be secure that the plant is able to both read minds and influence them; at quite some distance too.
Moving back to the consumption of blood, the plant gains sustenance from blood purely as an animal or a flytrap would. If this is true, why insist on human blood? This is an alien plant after all so it must be able to process any type of blood, it simply prefers to go after the blood of the dominant species of whatever planet it visits. Again though this makes no sense, if you were an alien species bent on world conquest your first imperative would be to multiply your numbers, once you were secure in your numbers only then would you go onto attack the dominant species. Clearly world conquest is not its highest concern. It must gain its blood from the highest status species. The plant either has some religious or moral objection to gaining power through eating lower animals, it must gain power from those who it is most at risk from. This to me is actually a very sporting attitude and one you seldom see in nature.

It has been in my mind for sometime, but a comment in the show's program really drove it home to me. Seymore is a classic doomed figure. His fall was not only inevitable it was all for the love of a woman and such blind desire proved to be the downfall of both of them. At each step Seymore is doing his best for his love and is still tormented by his every decision. He is a moral character and never actually kills anyone himself, yet is tormented by the accidental deaths that surround his actions. This is not surprising yet it is still tragic how his story finishes.

The plant is virtually indestructible. This is made abundantly clear in the end as Seymore tries to kill it with poisons, a gun and a machete. With the story as it ends, what hope does humanity have?
Well lots actually. Rat poison doesn't really have much effect on terrestrial vegetation so we'd expect the same on extraterrestrial vegetation. Maybe he should have tried some herbicide.
The bullets are likewise unsurprisingly ineffective. Try shooting a tree with a revolver and see how easily you kill it. As for the machete, again take a few swings at the average tree and see where it gets you. Yes you'll hack bits off, but the tree itself carries on. Hell on some plants you'd actually help it, after all Seymore himself sings "I've cut you back hard like I'm s'posed to" and laments how this doesn't help the plant be healthy.
So no the plant is almost certainly far from indestructable - he just used totally the wrong methods. He's started to think of the plant as an animal and that is his failure in killing it. You'd expect better from someone who was supposed to know his plants.